Application Security, Specialist

The Vanguard Group•Dallas, TX

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Application Security Specialist owns the design, implementation, and ongoing evolution of application and product security capabilities across multiple systems, applications, or product families throughout the product lifecycle. The role serves as a technical authority for application security, influencing secure architecture and design decisions and ensuring alignment with enterprise security standards and industry best practices. It leads complex security assessments, including threat modeling and advanced code reviews, and develops risk-based remediation strategies across product teams. The specialist evaluates and prioritizes security risks across supported products, advises on remediation approaches and security trade-offs, and leads integration of new security features, patches, and platform-level enhancements. The position also provides technical leadership and mentorship to application security and engineering peers and partners with product, engineering, and security stakeholders to improve product security posture and capabilities. The role focuses on AI runtime and application security. Responsibilities include integrating security capabilities into enterprise AI gateways such as Kong or LiteLLM, APIs, and Vanguard-developed AI applications; implementing prompt and response inspection, PII and secrets detection, access controls, and security logging; and embedding secure-by-design controls across the AI lifecycle. It engineers and deploys guardrails to detect and prevent prompt injection, sensitive data exposure, insecure model responses, malicious AI activity, and excessive agent access. It also designs and implements runtime controls for Generative AI applications, LLMs, copilots, RAG solutions, and agentic AI systems, including enforcing inference hooks via Zscaler or Alice inline with AI gateways. Vanguard is not offering visa sponsorship for this position. Vanguard uses a hybrid working model for the majority of crew members, combining flexibility with in-person learning, collaboration, and connection.

Requirements

Minimum of five years of related work experience.
Undergraduate degree or an equivalent combination of training and experience.

Nice To Haves

Graduate degree preferred.

Responsibilities

Own the design, implementation, and ongoing evolution of application and product security capabilities across multiple systems, applications, or product families throughout the product lifecycle.
Serve as a technical authority for application security, influencing secure architecture and design decisions and aligning solutions with enterprise security standards and industry best practices.
Lead complex application security assessments, including threat modeling and advanced code reviews, and drive risk-based remediation strategies across product teams.
Evaluate and prioritize application security risks across supported products and provide expert guidance on remediation approaches and security trade-offs.
Lead the integration of security features, patches, and platform-level enhancements into existing products, ensuring solutions scale and are consistently applied.
Provide technical leadership and mentorship to application security and engineering peers, sharing expertise, reviewing work products, and improving secure development practices.
Partner with product, engineering, and security stakeholders to improve product security posture, identify emerging threats, and recommend enhancements to tools, processes, and capabilities.
Integrate security capabilities across enterprise AI gateways such as Kong or LiteLLM, APIs, and Vanguard-developed AI applications, including prompt and response inspection, PII and secrets detection, access controls, and security logging.
Partner with Vanguard AI, cloud, application development, cybersecurity, and architecture teams to embed secure-by-design controls throughout the AI lifecycle and protect client, crew, and regulated financial data.
Engineer and deploy AI guardrails and gateway security controls to detect and prevent prompt injection, sensitive financial or client data exposure, insecure model responses, malicious AI activity, and excessive agent access.
Design, build, and implement AI runtime security controls for Generative AI applications, LLMs, copilots, RAG solutions, and agentic AI systems.
Enforce inference hooks via Zscaler or Alice inline with AI gateways such as Kong, LiteLLM, or similar gateway technologies.
Participate in special projects and perform other duties as assigned.